Archive | February, 2008

My crockpot experience

11 Feb

I finally used my crockpot last night to make chicken wild rice soup. It turned out good–a little runny but it tasted good. I think next time, I’ll use less chicken broth.

Here’s the recipe:

8 cups chicken broth
1 cup cream or half&half
chicken, cooked and diced
1 carrot, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 cups wild rice
4 tbsp flour
1/2 cup butter
White pepper

Cook the wild rice according to package directions.

Saute the following for 3 minutes in the butter (I used olive oil and a little butter): carrots, celery, onion, and chicken. Sift the flour in gradually. Don’t brown.

In a crockpot or 4-5 quart kettle, combine: chicken broth, chicken/veggies, and rice. Add white pepper to taste. Put on low setting.

Add cream 1 hour before serving.

While I was preparing the soup, Travis took our Focus to a friend’s house to replace our brake pads and rotors. I felt like such a traditional couple–me in the kitchen cooking, him in the garage working on cars. It’s funny how before I started dating Travis, I never actually cooked. I would make mac and cheese and pizza. But I never made things with chicken (too much work) or things that required multiple ingredients and didn’t come in a box. Oh, how I’ve branched out now!

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Garbage triggers insight

8 Feb

So last night I was cleaning up the kitchen and asked DH very nicely if he would do me a favor–take the trash out before he went to bed. A few seconds went by and he replied, “Why can’t I take it out tomorrow morning?” I had wanted him to take it out last night because I didn’t want the garbage to stink up our apartment. He wanted to wait until the morning because that is what we have been doing and he didn’t want to walk all the way out to the dumpster in the cold.

To his reply I said nothing. Instead, I went into the bedroom and while I was changing into my PJs, I realized that instead of silently being angry at him–Why does he need a reason? Isn’t it enough that I asked him to do it?–I should go talk to him about my feelings. So I went and told him how I felt and we discussed it for a while. He wanted a reason for taking the trash out at night; I didn’t really have one besides “Because I asked you to.” It was a mature discussion. No angry words were said, no doors slammed, but I still walked away sad, lonely, and feeling misunderstood.

I thought about just going to sleep to spite Travis even though I wanted to read for a while. But I got my Bible out anyway–God shouldn’t be pushed aside just because I was being moody. But I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading. All I could think about was how I felt so frustrated and how part of me wanted Travis to come to bed and the other part didn’t. And then it came to me: my feeling not understood by Travis was causing me to push him away, both emotionally and physically. I was equating feeling loved with being understood.

As I remembered back to different fights we had had over the past couple months, my theory seemed to make more and more sense. That’s why I was always over-explaining my emotions, responses, and wanting Travis to know WHY things had happened the way they did. During our arguments, even if Travis conceded the point and I “won,” I wasn’t satisfied because I still didn’t feel like he understood me and why I did what I did. I wasn’t justifying anything–just explaining. Ultimately, I just want him to understand me!

So I told him my insight last night and it was a huge stepping stone for our marriage. I learned more about him and his need for logical, rational, step-by-step thinking and he learned more about my whimsical, desire-driven, irrational thinking. But I can’t say how much hope it gives me to know why I have been being so irritable and angry at Travis lately–it has been my response to being hurt emotionally. That doesn’t make it right but it does point the way to the road of recovery.

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Relaxation

7 Feb

Last night was the most relaxing night I’ve had in a while. When I got home from work, I cleaned up the kitchen for about 5 minutes (so Travis wouldn’t come home to a dirty kitchen). Then I read the Bible for about 20 minutes and took a 20 minute nap. I really could’ve gone to bed right then but it was only 7:00 and I had other things I wanted to do.

I think that I am severely sleep-deprived because I can’t read a book or watch a movie without falling asleep within 20 minutes. I try to sit up straight and concentrate but it doesn’t work. I end up falling asleep anyway. I read about 5 pages of a book each night and there is a list of movies that I’ve only seen the beginning and end of. I keep telling Travis it’s because our bed is too small (we just have a my full-size from pre-marriage days) but we really don’t have the extra cash to spring for a bigger bed right now. Maybe if we buy a house, we can roll one into our mortgage…

Anyway, after my power nap (as my mom calls it), I did Pilates and then took a bubble bath while singing along to Christian worship songs. I like taking baths but really wish I had one of those clawfoot tubs that were actually made for taking baths in. The bath/shower combos today really aren’t made for adults to relax and take a bubble bath. It’s too short for my 5′ 6″ frame and my neck has to stay rigidly straight because of the wall. Why do they even make tubs like that? I guess if you wanted to give your kid or your dog a bath it would work well.

After that, Travis came home and we fell asleep reading in bed, me about 20 minutes before him. What a great night.

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40 days without chocolate

6 Feb

So like a lot of other Christians during the time of Lent, I decided to “give something up.” Even though I grew up in an Evangelical Lutheran church, my family didn’t really celebrate Lent. I do remember getting a wooden cross at the beginning of Lent and every Sunday leading up to Easter, getting another piece to add to the scene–some nails, a sponge for the wine, a pair of dice, a thin strip of purple cloth. We didn’t get a tiny crown of thorns though…maybe they considered it dangerous for little kids.

But I like the idea of celebrating the traditional church holidays. I mean, we celebrate Advent, why not Lent? The church that Travis and I attend out here doesn’t celebrate Lent though. At least, it doesn’t have an Ash Wednesday service tonight. I had kind of wanted to go. I even contemplated going to some random Lutheran church around here but that might just be weird. Add to that the fact that I don’t really agree with Lutherans’ theology either. Hmmm…

So the thing I am doing for Lent is giving up chocolate. I figure, it’s as much of a vice as any other. I eat chocolate like it’s going out of style. I know that I will have pangs of desire for chocolate during the next 40 days. So instead of eating chocolate (or just substituting another indulgence, like ice cream), I am going to use the time I would spend eating chocolate to commune with God. And whenever I am reminded that I can’t have chocolate, even though I really want some, I will be reminded that this world is not where I belong and I am bound for a better one.

Losing weight wouldn’t be bad either…

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Bye bye little red car!

5 Feb

There has been a red Chevy Corsica parked next to our car in our apartment parking lot for about 2 months. We haven’t seen it move for at least a month now. It’s there when we leave in the morning and there when we get home. We know that the person who owns it doesn’t actually live in the apartment building because when they first started parking in our parking lot, they actually parked in our spot. We left a note on their car and they moved–one spot over.

Well, when we bought the Pathfinder, we signed up for an extra parking spot. And guess which one they assigned to us? The one that the red car was parked in. Since it had worked before, we put a note on the car and waited for the owner to move. A week went by and still the car had not been moved. Our note was tattered and wrinkled from the snow that had fallen.

Finally, we decided that we had to have the car towed. There was no other way. So Travis called Coronado and told them about the car. Their response? “Yeah, the owner probably thinks that it’s no one’s spot. You have to call the towing company yourself.” Okay…it’s not like your the owner of the property or anything.

So yesterday we left work a little early to avoid the snow because we forgot to check the weather and drove the Focus. Whoops. As we pulled into the parking lot of our apartment, we gave our usual solemn, longing glance at our Pathfinder, parked way down in no man’s land for the time being. But this time, something caught our eyes. Something bright orange pasted onto the driver’s side window. We drove over and I got out to see what it was. A towing warning!

It was one thing that we couldn’t park in the parking space we were paying for and that Coronado refused to call the tow truck. But here they were, threatening to tow us! The nerve of some people! If I didn’t care about obeying social decency rules (and if the apartment office were open at different hours than the exact same ones I work), I would walk over to the leasing office and give them a piece of my mind.

But alas, the tow truck came and towed away that little red Corsica and we claimed spot 140 as its rightful owners. Now, instead of being scared that our new car is going to get towed, we’re just scared that it’s going to get keyed.

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What is my deal?

4 Feb

This weekend was a hard one for me. I think I cried every day. I’m just having such a hard time in our marriage right now, not because Travis is mean or insensitive or distant. Rather, it’s because I am.

I’m just so discouraged. I get mad at Travis over nothing quite often. So he’s gotten to the point (and I can’t blame him) of always assuming that if I’m mad, I’m mad at him. So if I say something remotely stern or terse, even if I’m not really mad, he thinks that I am mad and reacts. He acknowledges his sinfulness but I can’t help but see that about 90% of our fights are caused by me. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like a b$#%@. I feel like I fly off the handle at any little thing and not just when I’m PMSing. I know that ultimately, it’s because I’m a sinner. I also know that ultimately, I have been forgiven everything in Christ and that with the Holy Spirit, I have the power to conquer my sinful inclinations and desires to fight. But I just don’t feel like I’m winning or making any progress!!

For the past month, Travis and I haven’t gone even one whole day without fighting. Not only do I feel bad about our fighting, I wonder how much other newlyweds fight. I know the first year is supposedly the hardest. But why this hard? Is it this hard for other people? Am I just psychotic?

All I know is that I can’t keep living like this. It is miserable to always be fighting with your spouse, to be angry at them, have them angry at you, walking around on proverbial eggshells or making your spouse walk on them. I bawled in the car again last night and told Travis “Something has to change. Because I can’t keep living like this.” And as I lay this burden at the foot of the cross, I know that I won’t keep living like this–God won’t let me. Praise to Him for His faithfulness!

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Learning to love in reverse order

1 Feb

I went over to a friend’s house last night for a “girls’ night.” We watched The Princess Bride, a movie that I have seen way more times than I ever wanted to. So many people love that movie and I, well I just think it’s “okay.”  I’ll watch it willingly and I’m not in pain the whole time but it’s not a movie I would ever choose to watch on my own.

One of the girls who came brought a Chicken Bacon Artichoke pizza from Papa Murphy’s. It is my new favorite pizza. It was soooo amazing! And with bacon on it, you’d think that it would be high in calories. But it only has 181 calories per slice! Even though I’m not a huge fan of bacon, this pizza is fantastic. I will definitely be ordering it again.

When I left my friend’s house to go home, I was really excited to see Travis. But I knew that excitement to see my husband does not equal a good night with him. I can get frustrated, emotional, and annoyed by just about anything. So as I was driving home, I asked the Lord to let me have a good night with him and not get angry.

When I got into our apartment parking lot, I saw that Travis had parked the Pathfinder in our normal parking spot. We signed up for the spot right next to it but there has been this red Chevy Corsica sitting there forever (even though the car owner doesn’t even have a parking spot!). We put a note on the car but then it snowed and was covered up. Plus, I don’t think whoever owns the car uses it often enough to notice changes from day to day. Anyway, since the red car was in our other spot, and the Pathfinder was in our usual spot, I had to park my car about 200 feet away from our apartment door in the spots that aren’t assigned to anyone.

As I walked from my car to our apartment, I wasn’t mad. I was thinking “Maybe Travis was going to move the car before I got back and he just forgot.” When I got inside, I said playfully to Travis, “You made me park far away.” And he said sadly, “Ohhh, I tried calling you to let you know just to park in the spot next to me because no one ever parks there.” “I wasn’t expecting a call so I didn’t check my messages.”

And I was frustrated. A slight cause of it may have been that I felt Travis was saying it was my fault that I parked so far away because I didn’t check my messages. But most of it is just that I’m incredibly selfish and petty. And I don’t feel love for Travis a lot of the time, which burdens my heart with sorrow.

Travis wanted to cuddle but I just wanted my space. I got annoyed when he touched me. So being a nice, understanding guy, he left me alone. I just laid on the bed for a while, not moving. Travis asked me if I wanted to talk. I started talking but the tears started welling up. I broke down and it felt so good to cry on Travis’ shoulder. He just held me and said he loved me, which continues to amaze me since I feel like I deserve no favor from Travis for my often-harsh actions and words toward him. What did I do to deserve such a husband?

And so I see that I am learning to love my husband, and starting to feel love for him again, by being loved when I am not loving…just like our relationship with the Father. He loves us unconditionally, 24/7, when we are most unlovable. And His love moves our hearts to love–“We love because He first loved us.” I know that my Lord is using these trying, confusing circumstances for good and for His glory. I am just beginning to see the rays of light poking through the storm clouds…

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